


C'mon, C'mon (Move a Little Closer)

by serenelystrange



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Leverage Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2020, fake dating au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenelystrange/pseuds/serenelystrange
Summary: AU in which Parker was adopted by a loving, but nosy family, who want nothing more for her to settle down with a nice man and give them grandbabies. She enlists neighbor/ best friend Eliot's help in placating her parents by pretending to be madly in love with her. --- We all know where this is going, let's be real. No regrets!For SuperFandomQueen - Thank you for participating in the Leverage Secret Santa Gift Exchange this year!
Relationships: Parker/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Leverage Secret Santa Exchange (Mod Gifts)





	C'mon, C'mon (Move a Little Closer)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [superfandomqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfandomqueen/gifts).



“It’ll be easy,” Parker says, grinning widely at Eliot. They’re sitting across from one another at a Starbucks, Eliot scowling into an overpriced cup of burnt coffee.

“It’s a terrible idea,” Eliot says.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Parker counters, taking a sip of her drink; a sugar fueled candy colored confection that will haunt Eliot’s dreams.

“You’re 30 years old,” Eliot says. “Just tell your parents that you aren’t seeing anyone right now. There’s nothing wrong with being single.”

Parker fidgets and takes another long sip of her drink, giving Eliot a pleading gaze, her eyes a bright grey in the cloudy-weathered light.

“I’m adopted, you know?” she says when she sees Eliot’s resolution start to slip.

Eliot nods. He’s learned pieces of Parker life over the last 5 years since she became his neighbor across the hall of their old but well-kept apartment building.

“And my parents are great,” she says, “adopted me even though I was nearly old enough to age out of the foster system. They treated me the same as their biological kids from day one.”

Eliot nods again, encouragingly.

“They have 5 other kids,” she continues. “And they’re almost all younger than me, but all married and happy and shit. I don’t mind being single, I just hate….I hate the pity in their faces. Like they think there must be something wrong with me if I can’t find a nice boy to marry and have babies with.”

“That’s bullshit,” Eliot says, with surprising fervor. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” He pauses to consider, and then smirks. “Except maybe your taste in coffee.”

Parker sticks her tongue out at him before taking an exaggerated sip of her drink.

Eliot just sighs.

“So, what would this entail?” he asks.

“Just Christmas Eve and the next morning,” Parker says. “We can go to dinner and game night, and then do gifts with the family and then get out of there.”

“You’re lucky my family pushed our meet-up until January,” Eliot says, surrendering.

“Yes!” Parker says in a too-loud voice, uncaring of the looks from the straggling customers around them.

Eliot pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s going to be a long Christmas.

Eliot learns that Parker’s family lives out in suburbs, in a nice but not ostentatious house in the comfortably middle class neighborhood. He drives, planning to use it as an excuse to pull Parker away early on Christmas, and he can’t help but feel a little out of place when he parks his pickup truck behind the neat rows of pricy SUVs and current model sedans.

“Don’t worry about it,” Parker says. “They know you work at the bar, they aren’t expecting Mr. Moneybags or anything.”

“Terrible idea,” Eliot reiterates, trying to smooth down the wrinkles the seatbelt left in his best flannel shirt.

“It’ll be fine,” Parker says. “How do I look?” she asks, uncharacteristically nervous.

Eliot takes her in, noticing for the first time how different her outfit really is from what she usually wears. Gone are the jeans and simple top, in their place is a snug silver sweater-dress that stops mid-thigh as she sits. She’s wearing what looks like shimmery black knee socks under her tall black leather boots. When he looks up at her face, he realizes she’s even wearing some makeup, lashes long and dark with mascara, and some sort of pink-tinged lip stuff.

For a moment his world tips on its axis, as he realizes that holy shit, his best friend is kind of insanely hot.

“You look beautiful,” he says instead, honestly.

Parker smirks and holds out her hand for a high five.

“That face!” she says. “Just use that face when we’re with them, and they’ll buy it!”

Eliot laughs awkwardly, unaware his face had been doing anything at all.

“Guess I’m a decent actor,” he says, giving her an exaggerated leer that makes her laugh.

“Cable TV quality for sure,” she says, still laughing as she hops out of the truck.

Eliot grabs the bags of gifts and locks the truck, following Parker at a slow pace as they make their way up the driveway. He gulps as he sees the shape of what he assumes are her parents behind the glass door. This should be interesting.

“Auntie Parker has a booooyfriend!” is the first thing they hear as they come in.

They turn to see a small girl around 5 or 6 barreling towards them at full speed. Eliot braces himself, still holding all the gifts, but the girl launches for Parker instead, who yelps but catches her in a practiced move, swinging the girl around a few times before smacking a kiss on her cheek and dropping her gently to the floor.

“Babygirl, this is Eliot,” she says, pointing to him. She takes the bags of gifts from Eliot and vanishes down a short hallway, leaving Eliot alone with whoever Babygirl is.

“My name is Ariella,” she says, reaching up her hand to shake Eliot’s in a solemn manner.

Eliot only barely manages to school his face before he can melt at how freaking adorable she is.

“Nice to meet you, Ariella,” he says instead, shaking her tiny hand firmly.

“Go play with your cousins, Babygirl,” a stunning black woman says as she comes up behind the little girl and shoos her away.

“I want to bother Auntie Parker’s new boyfriend,” Ariella says, crossing her arms and pouting.

Eliot can’t quite help snickering that time.

“Later,” her mom says, pointing towards what Eliot assumes is the family room until Ariella gives up and heads off.

“I’m Sandy,” she says, shaking Eliot’s hand in a more relaxed manner than her daughter had.

Eliot introduces himself and chuckles after Ariella’s stompy little feet making their exit.

“Cute kid,” he says.

Sandy rolls her eyes fondly.

“And she knows it,” she says. “She’s the only girl out of the eight cousins, and the youngest by three years.”

“Hence the Babygirl,” Eliot guesses.

Sandy nods, and shrugs in a ‘what can you do?’ motion. “It just kind of stuck,” she says. “But I’m more interested in who our Parker brought home. She’s never done that before, you know.”

“I, uh,” Eliot stammers. “She did say something like that, yeah.”

“She’s a good one,” Sandy says. “She was the first one to befriend me when I started dating her brother ten years ago. Told her family that if she heard one racist ‘joke’ she’d slash all their tires.”

Eliot barks out a laugh, because yeah, that does sound like Parker.

“Amazing,” he says.

“They’ve all been really good to me,” Sandy says, “but Parker was the first. It’s not something you forget.”

“She’s definitely not something you forget,” Eliot says, still laughing at the image of Parker slashing her own family’s tires.

“So, do I have to give you the shovel talk?” Sandy asks. “Because it’s been a long week, and I really don’t want to have to hide a body on Christmas.”

“No, ma’am,” Eliot says, grinning. Parker’s particular brand of humor might not technically be genetic, but it certainly runs within her family.

“Good man,” Sandy says, clapping him on the shoulder once. “I’m going to get some eggnog. Benny got here a little while ago, so it should be spiked by now. Parker will be in the piano room with her parents, I’m sure.”

“Piano room?” Eliot asks, wondering if perhaps Parker had understated how much money her family had.

Sandy gives him an amused look that very clearly says something along the lines of ‘white people. No offense.’

He just shrugs, because yeah, fair enough. Sandy wanders off after pointing him in the right direction, and after leaving his boots on the mat of shoes by the door, he wanders off himself in search of Parker.

He finds her sitting at a compact but beautiful piano, faced the wrong way so that she can see her parents, who are sitting on a velvet couch across from her.

She looks up at Eliot as he approaches and beams a smile at him, only the tightness around her eyes betraying how nervous she really is.

“Darlin’” he says, laying it on a little thick with the accent if Parker’s slight snort is anything to go by.

“Well aren’t you a handsome one?” Parker’s mother says, coming over to wrap Eliot up in a hug that he awkwardly returns.

Parker’s dad just rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Leave the man be, Louise,” he says, moving in to shake Eliot’s hand once his wife has pulled away.

“I’m Eric,” he introduces himself. “Nice to finally meet someone that our Parker thinks is worth bringing home.”

“I was beginning to think she’d never give me any grandbabies,” Louise says, smiling over at Parker with joy.

Parker cringes at that, and Eliot jumps in to pull the attention away from her.

“We haven’t talked about kids yet,” he says. “It’s only been six months, after all.”

“Of course,” Louise says, agreeing readily enough. “You haven’t even proposed yet.”

“Right,” Eliot says stiltedly.

“You’re scaring him away, mother,” Parker says. “I’m gonna show him our room, we’ll be down for dinner.”

Eliot nods politely at Eric and Louise and practically runs to flee with Parker, stopping only momentarily to pick up the overnight bags Parker had tossed on the foyer floor.

When they’re safely upstairs and in Parker’s locked bedroom, Eliot takes a deep breath and shares an amused look with her.

“Well,” he says. “They’re definitely… something.”

“Yeah,” Parker agrees, sighing. “I swear she was hoping I was already pregnant.”

Eliot snorts at that, knowing full well that Parker doesn’t want kids anytime soon.

“Sandy seems cool,” he says. “And maybe a little murderous.”

“She’s my favorite,” Parker confesses in a whisper. “Don’t tell my siblings.”

Eliot mimes zipping his lips and then notices the decently sized but definitely solitary bed.

“Your traditional parents are ok with us sharing a bed out of wedlock?” he asks, only half joking.

“Mom really wants another granddaughter,” Parker laughs.

She flops back on the bed and hold out her arms to him in a welcoming gesture. “You better get to impregnating me,” she says, dissolving into laughter before she can even finish the sentence.

Eliot means to find it funny, he really does. But that damn silver dress has ridden up over her knee-high socks and all he can see is smooth pale skin and a hint of colored fabric peeking from between her legs. Seriously, when did Parker get so hot?

“Raincheck,” he says instead, giving her an exaggerated yawn. “Family time is exhausting, and it’s only been like twenty minutes.”

“Mmhm,” Parker agrees. “Come nap with me for a little while. We can probably avoid them all for a whole hour if we stay very quiet.”

Eliot has no good reason to be able to decline, so he tugs off his flannel shirt, leaving him in only his black sleeveless undershirt, and crawls under the covers that Parker has so invitingly pulled out for them both. They lie there for a few minutes before Parker starts fidgeting and gets up from the bed in a huff.

“What is it?” Eliot asks.

“Damn sweater is too hot to sleep in,” Parker says, already pulling it over her head and throwing it to the floor in satisfaction.

She’s wearing some sort of camisole and boyshort panties, which when combined with the socks, is both a blessing and a curse to Eliot’s libido. A blessing because at least she’s covered enough that he can stand to look at her without bursting into flames, but a curse because Jesus Christ, she still looks like a walking fantasy he didn’t even know he had. He turns to his side suddenly, facing away from her, and giving a silent but very stern talk to his dick to behave.

Parker doesn’t seem to notice and just slides back into the bed with a sigh of relief, falling into sleep almost immediately.

Eliot wakes up to Parker gently shaking his shoulder, the smell of the jasmine shampoo she uses wafting around him in a pleasant haze.

“Wakey wakey,” she says. “Time for dinner.”

Eliot groans, and hates his entire life.

Dinner is surprisingly almost painless. There’s so many people that all Eliot really has to do is smile and nod and occasionally look at Parker with a besotted expression. He finds it to be no real hardship. They don’t hold hands, but Parker sits close enough that every time their fingers brush up against each other a little zing of electricity shoots up his arm.

“This damn sweater,” Parker laughs after the third time it happens, and then goes back to her conversation with Sandy.

Eliot nods along in agreement and focuses on his meal, hoping the clock will move just a little bit faster.

After a harrowing game of Uno and a more reserved game of Charades, they’re finally able to escape to Parker’s room again. Parker had nearly killed him when she’d hopped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, before hanging off of him like some kind of deranged koala. Which, thankfully, was the answer to her Charade, so Eliot was able to extricate himself before any _situations_ popped up.

Parker had let him shower first and he’d done so quickly, resisting the urge to jerk off, knowing how many other people would be using the shower over the holiday. By the time he had dug out his sleep clothes, changed, and gotten his phone plugged in to charge, Parker was already back in the room, wrapped in a towel.

“Forgot my pjs,” she said, pulling clothes from her overnight back and tossing them to a chair in the corner until she finds what she’s looking for.

Blessedly, she pulls out an outfit much like Eliot’s; drawstring pants and a loose t-shirt. She suddenly looks much more like the Parker he’s grown used to, makeup free and comfortably casual. Eliot’s very nearly relieved, until she smiles up at him as she’s toweling her hair dry with a second towel, and he feels his stomach drop. Maybe it’s not the clothes and makeup after all, he realizes with growing panic. Maybe it’s just been Parker all along.

“You gonna turn around?” she asks, twirling her finger in a circle.

Eliot spins around to give her privacy to change, and closes his eyes tightly when he realizes he can still see her fairly well in the vanity mirror.

It’s going to be a restless night.

“Will you kiss me?”

Parker’s voice comes out as a whisper in the dark some time later. Neither of them have managed to fall asleep yet, and Eliot can swear he hears the ticking of a clock somewhere nearby, even though Parker’s room only has a digital alarm.

“Right now?” Eliot asks, before his brain can catch up with his damn mouth.

“No,” Parker says, laughing quietly. “Tomorrow maybe, when we do presents. Just to sell it to my parents before we leave.”

“Are you sure?” he asks. “That won’t be too weird?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Parker says, sounding oddly defensive, and if he’s not mistaken, a little hurt.

“I want to,” he says, a little too truthfully. “I mean, I don’t mind,” he amends. “If you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I minded,” she says, and he can practically feel her roll her eyes.

“Then I’ll kiss you,” Eliot says, swallowing around the want to say more.

“Good,” Parker says, and she apparently decides that’s that, because she turns around and puts the conversation to an end.

Eliot stares up at the dark ceiling for a very long time before finally falling asleep.

They make it through breakfast without incident, and when they’re finally all in the big family room with piles of gifts, Eliot is surprised to realize that he doesn’t really feel awkward at all. Being there with Parker feels right in a way he had never considered before, but is warming up to by the moment.

The rest of the family is chatting while he children compare gifts, and Eliot decides to seize the moment while he can.

“Hey,” he says to Parker in a whisper. “c’mere.”

Parker leans in when he cups her cheek and kisses him in such a tender way that Eliot can already feel the way his heart is going to break when they go home.

But for now, he ignores it all and breathes her in, enjoying the kiss for what he’s sure is several moments too long.

One of Parker’s brother’s wolf-whistles in the next moment, and Parker pulls away to flip him off, leaving Eliot half-dazed and wanting more.

They manage to get away after only a few more hours, and after many hugs and goodbyes, they finally have everything tucked away in the truck and are ready to hit the road.

“One more thing,” Parker says. She’s still in her pajamas, a long winter coat pulled on over them but left unbuttoned, and her leather boots are a ridiculous looking contrast to her outfit. Eliot thinks she looks perfect.

“Yeah?” he asks, and then he’s being pressed against the closed door of his truck and kissed within an inch of his life by Parker, who tucks her entire body into his until all he can do is loop his arms around her and hold her close. When she finally pulls away, he just looks over at her with wide eyes.

“I’m kind of into you,” Parker says, shrugging in that way she does when she’s making Eliot’s head explode. “Thought you might be into me too, after that kiss earlier.”

“Jesus, Parker,” Eliot says, but his hands are still resting on her waist, trapped beneath the heat of her coat. He finds that he’d be happy to never move from this spot.

“Well?” she asks. “Did I read that wrong? I know I’m not the best with reading people sometimes. Maybe you’re just a really good actor.”

Eliot laughs and shakes his head, squeezing her waist gently.

“I’m not much of an actor, after all” he says. “And you didn’t read anything wrong. I just needed a second to catch up.”

“Oh, good,” Parker says, and then she’s kissing him again.

It’s gotten really cold out, Eliot realizes absently. He’s pretty sure at least half of Parker’s family is watching them from the windows, too, and possibly some of the neighbors.

But with everything he’s only just realized that he wants literally wrapped in his arms, he just can’t bring himself to care.

THE END


End file.
